


To Love With Monstrous Souls

by Saeva



Series: Monstrous Love & Other Things [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Feels, Bathing/Washing, Canonical Child Abuse, Dom/sub Undertones, Era? What era?, Invasion of Privacy, M/M, Morally Ambiguous Character, Past Child Abuse, Possessive Tom Riddle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21937150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saeva/pseuds/Saeva
Summary: On the eve before their wedding Tom and Harry have a conversation about the nature of their relationship.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Series: Monstrous Love & Other Things [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1957843
Comments: 16
Kudos: 417
Collections: Chamber of Secrets' Winter Exchange (2019)





	To Love With Monstrous Souls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jadejabberwock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadejabberwock/gifts).



> I hope you like this!

“He’s a monster, Harry!” Hermione flung the words out like a curse desperately wielded by a cornered child. “Why can’t you see that?”

He allowed his eyes to shut, gave himself time to breathe in and out, and then, open eyed, said firmly, “Tomorrow he is my husband. Nothing will change that.” 

“Then come tonight.” She grabbed his hand and tugged. “Come with us. We’ll hide you.” 

He planted his feet. He’d long since given up on pleading for her to be happy for him or, at least, accepting, so he said nothing. 

Her expression broke, pottery dashed against the wall. No doubt she thought he was the one who’d thrown it but she’d been the one throwing herself against that wall over and over for months now. “Please.”

“It’s too late.” His hand pulled out of hers and she let it go, grip weakening. He sighed and ran his hand through his messy hair. “Just go.” His mouth tightened but not so much it locked shut. “Tell Ron to stay away. I mean it. If he causes a disturbance at the wedding Tom’s going to be angry.” 

“And take it out on you.” She raised an eyebrow, eyes flashing. 

Harry’s thoughts tumbled. “What?” 

“I’ve seen the bruises. The way you flinch from touch.” 

If his laugh sounded a little hollow he could be forgiven. This was the first time she’d mentioned _that_ , the first time she’d acknowledged his bruises. He laughed again, more amusingly this time. “A bit late on that one, ‘Mione.” 

Her lower lip trembled, her eyes bright. “But it’s not too late. We can get you away. You never have to let yourself be hurt like that again!” 

“Let?” His body flung itself back without a thought and he glared at her, breath going tight. His hand flicked toward the door. “Get out while we’re still friends.” 

“I didn’t mean it like --” 

“OUT!” His magic tripped her back, toward the door, and it flew open. 

As soon as the door slammed shut behind her, blown inward by his rage bubbling over his carefully built fortifications, he dropped down to his knees and gasped. Distantly he heard the footsteps of his fiance pounding down the stairs. 

“What did she do?” 

“It doesn’t matter.” Harry took a deep breath and then a second before looking up at Tom’s watchful face. He felt a gentle press on his mental walls and pushed it back, waiting for the retreat. 

“The fact I felt your rage on the second floor says elsewise,” Tom told him with a frown. When he got no reply he sighed. “Fine, keep your privacy and come here.” Powerful hands pulled him up into strong arms and held him close, Harry sinking into the touch until Tom carefully pushed him away. “Go to my bath and undress. Wait for me.” 

_No!_ Harry kept it in his head. Trust, so much of their relationship was built on trust, and he needed to accept that leaving for a few minutes didn’t mean Tom wouldn’t come back to him when Harry needed him to. So wobbly and reluctant he took the stairs up to Tom’s room (soon to be their room) and went into the bathroom where he undressed and set his folded clothes aside. 

The bath faucet turned without prompting a moment later and soon steaming water began to fill up the clawfoot tub. Bath oil tipped in of its own accord a minute later, filling the air with the scent of sandalwood and cinnamon. Tom’s scent. Harry took a deep breath and curled his legs under him on the rug, calmer now and ready to wait for Tom to finish up whatever he was doing when Hermione came over. 

Almost at the thought Tom stepped in, already tugging his outer robe off of his shoulders. He smiled softly and Harry stood. 

“Let me help?” 

“If you let me, love.” 

Harry smirked. “Help undress yourself? Sure.” 

But Tom’s hand snatched out and grabbed his chin, holding firmly. “If you let me help you with this. By which I mean,” he said slowly and deliberately, “you will allow me to help you.” 

A slither of unease slipped down Harry’s spine and he tugged his chin back. “There’s nothing to do. I got her to leave. I think they’ll avoid the wedding tomorrow. They’ll come around when they come around, Tom, or they won’t. I’ve done everything I can.” 

“Mmm.” 

Tom unbuttoned his shirt with the wave of a hand but didn’t push Harry’s hands away when they came up to peel it off. Piece by piece Harry removed Tom’s clothing, taking special care with the boots. 

Taking care of Tom’s boots was probably one of Harry’s favourite home-making tasks, second only to making certain Tom, who shared Harry’s bone-deep experience with starvation, came home to a homemade meal at the end of work most days. He enjoyed this sort of doing-for because Tom appreciated that Harry still wanted to put in the effort even though magic could have done it all much easier. 

Now he pulled off each article of clothing and folded it too, raising fully on his knees once he had the socks tucked into Tom’s boots and set aside. Pressing a line of kisses across his hip, Harry shifted to move his attentions centerward and pouted a little when Tom pushed his back. 

“No. I have no intention of allowing you to distract me with your admittedly excellent mouth.” 

“But you’d enjoy it.” Harry licked his lips to make them shine and looked up with them parting in … Yes, like that. Tom’s eyes darkened. “And so would I.”

“I know you enjoy distracting me when you don’t want to have difficult conversations.” Tom ran a hand through Harry’s fine, wavy hair and sunk in it, making him gasp. 

“You know I enjoy _serving you_ , sir.” 

The hand fisted, twisting painfully. “Do stop trying to manipulate me.” He dropped his eyes and Tom sighed, moving his hand from hair to shoulder to pull an unresisting Harry onto his feet and nudge him towards the bath. “I know you would, love. Climb in.” 

Once they sunk into the deep, hot water he simply lay there, soaking in the warmth of the water and the comfort of his lover’s touch. Behind his closed eyelids he ignored the prickling of tears. He and Hermione had fought about Tom before. He’d do it again. She’d feel bad if she knew what --

“What did she say to you?” 

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Harry pulled his legs to his chest. Tom pushed them back down and began gently washing Harry’s sensitive nipples, his ticklish ribs, his vulnerable middle. It’d took a year before Harry even let Tom touch his stomach, hadn’t it? But -- “I wash you. You don’t --” 

“You need someone to look after you. This isn’t service.” The other man all but spat the word, not because he thought Harry weak for his desires but because that role would have to be forced on Tom. He’d never accept serving others at anything except the end of a wand. “But I will take care of what’s mine. If you didn’t want that you should have taken Granger’s offer to help you run from me.” 

“Were you listening?” 

He scoffed. “No, but the bint’s predictable.” The washcloth rubbed gentle circles over Harry’s stomach despite the harsh tone. “I’m going to take care of you and you’re going to be a good boy and let me, yes?” 

Harry sighed, curling into the warmth of Tom’s body and the even hotter water. For a long time the other man simply washed him, stroking the soft cloth over his heat pink skin, and when that was done massaging shampoo into his hair. Harry moaned, arousal slow and heavy in his belly, making his body warm and languid. He felt like a stroked cat, lazily stretched out in his master’s lap and contently purring. It was all so… decadent.

Even when he tried to rinse his own hair Tom flicked his nipple in warning. 

“Are you being good?” 

Tom tipped his head back and rinsed his hair, once, twice, and then spelled the water clean as Harry mentally floated. All he needed to do was behave. Nothing to worry about at all. Conditioning his hair made the arousal heavier, the knowledge Tom would move him as he needed to be moved allowing Harry to sink further into the sensations.

By the time more deliberate touches pinched and rolled his nipples he’d hit that good-right-his place in his own head. A broad, firm hand gave a few slow strokes up his shaft and stopped. A few nipple pinches. Stop. A few more strokes. Stop. 

“I wonder how long you’d let me play like this before you’re a squirming, pleading mess, love. You’re usually so impatient, so easily excitable.” 

Harry opened one eye and mock glared before curling up in his fiance’s lap, pressing his mouth against Tom’s throat. “I’m all yours, Tom.” He usually needed pain to feel like this, happy and needy and like pleasing Tom meant more than anything in the world. 

Tom caught his mouth in a kiss and they kiss languidly for… time. A nip to his bottom lip made his mind soar. 

“My good, sweet boy.” Harry burrowed closer. He craved these touches from Tom, the comfort of it, the gentleness his lover showed only him, the kindness when -- like Hermione reminded him -- “Why were you so upset at Hermione?” 

_I’ve seen the bruises._ He flinched, hard and pained, and balled himself tight as the calmness pounded out of him. _You never have to let yourself be hurt like that again._ His mouth dropped under water and he breathed in, a stupid fucking instinct, and he choked. He choked and he coughed and he coughed so hard he gagged. 

A spell, it must have been a spell, stole all the water and the air superheated to keep him warm so the sudden cold air wouldn’t be a shock, and all of him kept track of that even as he coughed. A hand reached for him and he flinched back. 

Tom froze, hand in the air, his own flinch on his face, and he pulled back from the -- He must have been thinking to rub Harry’s back, maybe? Shame pulsed through him. “ I’m sorry. I was confused. I know you’d never do… that, Tom. You take care of what’s yours.” 

Tom carefully tugged Harry into sitting in his lap, his own arms around his knees, Tom’s arms around his back and arm. “Do you believe that?” The pounding adrenaline from choking in water died off quickly, leaving him tired and limp in Tom’s arms, and Harry began a nod -- “No, I mean it, think that through. You flinched.” 

Harry rolled his eyes. “I don’t need to ‘think it through’. You’re a difficult prick who's never seen a line you aren’t willing to cross if you think it’s for the best but you don’t think it’s for the best -- for _our_ best -- to hurt me. It wasn’t…” 

“Then -- What?” 

He smiled humourlessly and met his would-be husband’s dark blue eyes. “She said I didn’t have to let you hurt me any longer.” 

Tom’s teeth audibly clacked. Behind gritted ones, he snarled, “I am going to kill her.” 

A hole in the center of the floor swallowed Harry’s stomach whole and he fought a tremor. He couldn’t stop the tremble in his voice. “ _Please._ I don’t want that.” He dropped his forehead against the other man’s shoulder because he couldn’t handle the anger in his eyes. “Please, Tom.” 

A hum and a broad hand stroke over his back. “It was a figure of speech. I promise I will not kill the bint.” 

“Thank you.” He let himself take slow, deep breaths for a few long moments. Then, “I asked her to keep Ron from disturbing the wedding and said that you’d be upset. That’s why she said…” 

“That’s why she thought I’d hurt you?” 

He closed his eyes and the roar of his pulse in his head turned into the roar of flames in his memory. “She said she’d noticed the bruises,” he heard himself say from far away. In the hear-now of his memory he heard the screams as the wooden beams cracked overhead. “She said she noticed the fucking bruises. The way you noticed the bruises, Tom.” His eyes blurred and burned -- from tears, from smoke -- and he felt the soft touch of the tears being pushed away by a thumb. Tom’s blurry face, tender and concerned. No, wrathful and victorious. The Dursleys silent. Harry’s own words quiet in the bathroom, “She said you were a monster.” 

“Love, I am a monster.” 

“Tom, when you noticed the bruises you made damn well sure they stopped happening.” 

And that was it, the sobs grabbed at him, ugly, broken things as his lover rocked him. 

He hadn’t asked Tom to do it. He would have said no if Tom asked him. And Hermione was right -- Tom was a monster. But of all of them it hadn’t been his friends -- his family of choice -- or the should-be uncles chosen by his father or the adults entrusted over and over with his care who’d protected him. It’d been the monster. 

And tomorrow it’d be his husband. And there was nothing anyone could do about that. 

He laughed humourlessly. “That was a dick move, Monster.” 

Tom sighed in dismay. “Is that going to be a pet name now?” 

“You deserve it.” 


End file.
